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MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Mar 10, 2010

What now for Mao?

What a show it was.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 9, 2010

TV gets fickle fans flocking to fads to shed fat

Many people in Japan, especially young women, are keen to diet.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 7, 2010

Olympic memories are priceless

It was only fitting that hockey's beloved icon lit the Olympic torch and Canada's top current star scored the gold medal-clinching goal — in overtime, the proverbial icing on the cake — on the final day of the Vancouver Winter Games.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2010

Rebel artist restored to glory

The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno isn't merely a convenient place for old folks to while away an afternoon, or a safe venue to take parties of schoolchildren to on excursions. It's also a very symbolic and ritualistic space, where the final seal is set on the nation's cultural and historical image of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 28, 2010

Bulking up in Bush Warbler Valley

I'd like to improve my grip on sumo wrestling, so when a friend invites me to watch the big boys tussle through a morning practice, I jump at the chance. I get off at Uguisudani (Bush Warbler Valley) Station on the Yamanote Line, where the station-identity jingle is of this warbler's mellifluous chortle...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Feb 26, 2010

Yumeji Takahisa and Taisho Era Romance

Yumeji Takehisa Museum Closes on March 28
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2010

Not the time to junk the factories

HONG KONG — While President Akio Toyoda and his Toyota Motor Corp. search for the vehicle pedal that says "damage control," economists and political commentators are increasingly speculating whether the multimillion vehicle recall by Toyota presages the beginning of the end of Japan's mighty manufacturing...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 21, 2010

Singing the praises of sparrows

In a rush of small wings, a fluttering, chirruping, congregation of familiar birds — Eurasian tree sparrows — descended on the bush in front of me. They chattered noisily among themselves, each shifting its position almost constantly as if unsure whether it had the right to be on any given perch....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2010

Delving deep beyond the merely decorative

In a vast room with white walls and wooden floors, a lone man crouches in the corner holding a spouted container that releases tiny white crystals onto the floor in a carefully controlled flow. Making sure not to disturb the meticulously crafted lines around him, he works steadily and with great resolve....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 14, 2010

A winter's tale of time-warp Takayama

After a while you tire of the easy destinations — the usual spots with their inevitable touristic clutter. So you decide on somewhere different — somewhere that's far from the madding crowds and far, too, from the yet more madding megaphone-toting tour guides.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 14, 2010

Could 'Godzilla cherry blossom' save Japanese culture?

Cherry blossom is as quintessentially Japanese as sushi and samurai.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 12, 2010

Phoenix fired up for Japan

"If I knew the answer to that, I would have done it earlier," jokes Thomas Mars, singer with French electro- poppers Phoenix, when asked how his band of perennially stylish underachievers has been transformed into a mainstream, gloriously out-of-place Grammy winning act of the moment.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 9, 2010

Hay fever ad campaign nothing to sneeze at

An ad campaign cleverly promoting a hay-fever medicine gets a free ride on social media.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 6, 2010

My views of Japan after a trip home

On a quick trip to the United States last winter, I had my sister pull over as we sped down a country road. This road provides a convenient link to the local interstate and my family members use it almost every day. I did too, back in my distant youth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2010

Spring blooms early in art world

Seasons play an important role in Japanese culture, which has long celebrated the appreciation of ephemeral beauty as a reflection of life itself. One of the most important seasons in Japan is New Year's, a time for families to gather and celebrate with several days of elaborate feasts. Traditionally,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 2, 2010

Real estate and railways

Got a minute for a coffee on the train platform? And can we interest you in a new place to live as well?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 29, 2010

'The Private Lives of Pippa Lee'

What exactly does a woman want? Even a genius like Freud couldn't answer that one, but that doesn't stop Hollywood from gleefully pitching their own answers, time and time again. Sadly, they're almost always something routine and familiar, dribbling with prosaic food-court banality: a man, a family,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2010

Structure as natural philosophy

"Cecil Balmond is seen as being almost divine in Japan," says Shino Nomura, the curator of the latest exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 24, 2010

Adachi still lifes are sure to grow on you

Just 20 km east of Matsue, the impressive collection of paintings and ceramics at the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi City, Shimane Prefecture, is at risk of being upstaged by its six superlative landscaped gardens.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 22, 2010

Sweat to a girl riot; soak up Gypsy jazz

"What's that smell in here?" I ask The Harpy's in the dressing room of the livehouse Motion, which lies at the butt end of the sleazy Kabukicho entertainment area in Tokyo's central Shinjuku district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2010

East, West split by the lens

When the Leica was introduced in 1925, a new era in photography began. The compact camera, by being much lighter and more versatile than previous models, gave photographers unprecedented freedom in choosing the subject, angle and moment for their snaps.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2010

Habsburg treasures celebrate art history

It seems anachronistic and a little too culturally remote to call Rudolf II (1552-1612) a culture otaku, but that's how the catalog for the "Treasures of the Habsburg Monarchy," now in its second staging at Kyoto National Museum until March 14, describes him. The reclusive Rudolf had diverse interests...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Jan 14, 2010

Affordable Issey Miyake, Guild Prime, mook freebies, A&F in Japan and men's briefs

24 Issey Miyake
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jan 13, 2010

Kindle upgrades, but DX e-reader is just the start of a boom

E-inking a deal: Ghosts of U.S. TV makers past would find it amusing. Sony produced the world's first e-ink device for reading books, some six years ago. While Sony is still in the e-ink reader game, U.S. giant Amazon now leads the global market. Amazon is set to land a second blow against Sony in the...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2010

Ship collision coverage exposes media bias

This week's collision in which a Japanese whaling ship chopped off the bow of an antiwhaling boat off Antarctica not only highlights the international tussle over the contentious hunt but has also led to a clash between Japanese and Western media as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010

Aesthetics of paring down to the outline

In the distant past, the ratio of manufactured goods to people was extremely low, so the tendency was for such products to be highly decorated and embellished. Since then the ratio has altered considerably in favor of the material objects. Now, most of us are inundated with a multitude of gadgets, gizmos,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Dec 29, 2009

Trends in Japan 2009: changing gender roles

In 2009, traditional gender roles were tweaked slightly in Japan by herbivorous males and carnivorous females.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 27, 2009

Decade's end abuzz and a-flutter with wist for a warm poetic past

At the end of the year — and, particularly, the end of a decade — an old man's fancy turns, involuntarily, to nostalgia.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 27, 2009

Decade's end abuzz and a-flutter with wist for a warm poetic past

At the end of the year — and, particularly, the end of a decade — an old man's fancy turns, involuntarily, to nostalgia.

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?